falling into fairy tales

Maybe a month ago, I picked up a book at the local library for J that I had heard about from a friend. It was the second book in a series, but the only one that was available. The book? Whatever After – If the Shoe Fits. We starting reading the beginning of the together and J instantly loved it. Even I thought it was pretty fun. We wanted to read the rest of the series, but the libraries here only have book #2 and none of the bookstores carry the series. I was going to buy them all through Amazon, but thanks to the Scholastic book club, they will all be in our hands in a week or so at a great price.

The premise of the series is that 10 year old Abby and her 7 year old brother Jonah get magically transported inside fairy tales through a magic mirror in their basement. In the first book, they apparently stop Snow White from eating the poisoned apple but then realize that without that, she never meets her prince, never falls in love and doesn’t live happily ever after. So with book #2, when they wind up in Cinderella’s story, they vow to not keep her from meeting and marrying the prince. However, just by being in the story, they have altered it and have to work to keep the ending correct. Book #3 takes place in The Little Mermaid and book #4 is Sleeping Beauty. Book 4 technically doesn’t come out until the end of November, but the Scholastic website doesn’t mention that, so who knows when we’ll see that one.

Scholastic has these marked as for grades 3-5. I don’t get it. J loved this book and is drooling over the other 3. Every day she asks when they are getting here. They are slightly longer at about 176 pages, but the stories are still pretty light. Plus, we heard about them from a friend whose daughter has just started 2nd grade and she and her friends read them for their own book club. There has been some talk about why we need to separate books so much by grade and reading level. Either kids like the book or they don’t. Either they can read it, or it is too hard for them.

Anyway, I would highly recommend this series for young girls. Below is also the book trailer, the newest craze in the book world.